William Carlos Williams
Of Asphodel
When I was a boy
I kept a book
to which, from time
to time,
I added pressed flowers
until, after a time,
I had a good collection.
The asphodel,
forebodingly,
among them.

(l. 69-78)
* [T]he Fields of Asphodel [are] where the dead, the burnt-out wraiths of mortals make their home. Odyssey 24.5-9, trans. Robert Fagles

Asphodelus luteus L.,* from the Linnean herbarium.



(c)